Israel/Palestine
In reply to the discussion: The Global March to Jerusalem, a brave and admirable attempt to awaken the world’s conscience [View all]Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)But they would never have agreed that the Israeli strategy of keeping Arafat in exile was going to help anything.
And none of them would ever have argued that it was better to keep the Occupation going...or even said that to your side in private.
And fine...Arafat was denounced...as he should be for his flaws and corruption...that still doesn't vindicate the idea of trying to kick him out of the process...because it was never going to be possible to end the war unless Arafat and the large group of armed cadre aligned with him went along with it. That's what you don't get.
That's why "the Troubles" went on for decades in Northern Ireland...because the one side(the Unionists and the British) kept insisting that they would only deal with ONE faction on the other side...the faction that wasn't actually involved in the armed struggle.
Making peace with one group of Palestinians without getting Arafat and his loyalists on board in some way was ALWAYS going to mean that the war would just be carried on by Arafat in his crowd. None of the people aligned with him were going to defect to the other leadership.